Chapter Text
He hasn’t even kissed her yet.
All those months spent dreaming of how this little reunion of theirs would go, exactly what it would feel like, and they’ve gotten it all wrong, out of order. He should’ve known that even laying with her would not be how he’d expected.
His cock, soft now, has grown oversensitive, proving there can be too much of a good thing, even with Nina. He hisses as he withdraws from her. Then he pushes himself up onto his knees so he can observe her debauched state. Strands of her silky hair have escaped the twist that held them at the nape of her neck; they lay about the pillow like the mahogany-hewn halo of one of her saints. Her soft cheeks are pink, and she smiles up at him sweetly, one dark eyebrow quirked, her green eyes twinkling with mischief.
She looks pleased with herself.
Matthias’ gut tightens, a mixture of residual guilt and anger and yes, desire, even now, even after… that … he is not sated. He wants more, and he knows he should be repulsed by that want, that weakness.
His gaze travels down, down the staid blouse struggling to restrain her ample figure, past the corset-cinched waist, the gathering of skirts around her ribs, the decadent swell of her belly, the curve of her full hips, to her solid, creamy thighs, and between them…
He swallows.
Between them, dark hair that glistens, the flesh there— so soft, so much softer and silkier than he ever could have imagined— a bright, angry red from his brutish ministrations.
As he watches, a bead of white fluid seeps out. He swallows again, but there seems to be no more moisture left in his body. He did that to her. Matthias has abused himself in the past, has taken himself in hand and roughly brought himself to peak so that he might sleep or, in recent months, because dreams of Nina have chased him from sleep, but never before has release felt so earth-shatteringly good and draining and all-encompassing as this one was.
Feeling like he has done her wrong somehow, he forces himself to meet Nina’s gaze once more. She is amused, he can tell; she looks as though she is about to laugh at him again. Then she does, a soft chuckle as she shimmies a little.
Stop laughing at me.
He covers her sex with his hand, grinding the heel of it against her, and is satisfied when her laughter dissolves into an appreciative moan.
“Oh, well done, you,” she purrs. “You learn fast.”
He frowns. “Did you—can you—”
“Words, Helvar.”
“Can it feel for you like it did for me?” he asks, boldly, then clarifies, “Release.”
“Oh, hm. Yes.” She smirks. “In a sense.”
He clears his throat. “Did… it?”
“Not quite, bu-u-u-ut… you could help get me there.”
“Maybe you don’t deserve that,” he says, sullen.
She pouts. “Still feeling mean, are we?”
In lieu of answering, he returns his focus to her sex. Gently, he strokes the folds, encouraging more of his own seed to seep out.
He did that.
“Will there be a babe?” he asks as he pets her, playing with this soft, secret part of her.
How many others have been allowed to see her like this?
He hates them all. It should be him, only him, who gets this. If she were a Fjerdan, and he her ægtemand, there would be no question: she would belong to him. This would belong to him. And he, to her.
But Nina Zenik belongs to no one except herself and Ravka. Even Matthias is not fool enough to believe otherwise.
“There won’t,” she says.
At the hint of melancholy in her voice, he glances up.
“Heartrender,” she explains, with studied evenness. “I can regulate that sort of thing. Make the conditions… inhospitable.”
The revelation brings with it a swooping lurch of disappointment. It surprises him. He always knew he wanted that— a wife, a family— but he’d never expected to want it with someone like Nina.
“Ah,” is all he can muster. “I see.” Then, with a fortifying breath, “Would you—ever—”
“Matthias.”
His name sounds like a reproach spilling from her lips. He remembers, then, who she is— a spy from a war-torn homeland she loves, desperate to return where he is not welcome— and his own role— a traitorous soldier unable to do the same, who will have to go on the run now, after being broken out of prison, and who has just committed a mortal sin with the enemy. What kind of world is this, and who are they, to bring new life into it? It would be a fool’s errand. A terrible mistake.
A girl, says a treacherous little voice in the back of his thoughts. With Nina's dark hair, and her dazzling smile.
Frustrated, fascinated, he brings himself back to the here and now, focusing once more on the pleasures of the flesh. If that is all they are to have, he decides, then he will not castigate himself for it. He will enjoy the time he has here in this too-soft bed with Nina. He will not think of the future.
But thoughts of the future do not release their claws from his mind so easily.
She would be a Grisha, and she would have my ice-blue Fjerdan eyes. She would be tall, like both of us, and I would teach her to defend herself. Nina would teach her each of the six languages she speaks, and how to use her sorcery to help those in need, like Nina does.
She would be a marvel.
He swallows.
Dipping his fingers between her folds, gently, the most carefully he has ever touched anything, he brings their combined release to his lips, trying not to think about what Brum would say if his old commander ever learned he’d done such a thing. Let Djel strike me down, he thinks. For my wantonness. I do not care. I can have this, and I will.
Salt, and sweet, and tang. Like hot, syrupy confections eaten on deck while breathing in sea air on the morning before a storm.
“You’ve gone very quiet,” she says, eyeing him. “Are you still with me?” He nods. “Good. Untie me now, darling.”
Distracted, he mutters, “Fine.”
He frees her right hand first, working loose the knot in the stocking and brushing a soft kiss against the pale, satiny skin of her inner wrist, before doing the same for her left. Once untied, she massages where the restraints held her, paying special attention to the places he kissed, rubbing the pad of her thumb against them as if to memorialize those kisses, committing them permanently to her skin.
Then she reaches for him, grabbing hold of his shoulders, and brings him back down to the bed. He collapses onto the mattress beside her, allowing her to roll him onto his back and throw one of her long, shapely legs over his thighs.
“Maybe,” she sighs, laying her head on his shoulder.
He frowns. “Maybe—?”
“There might be a baby, one day. Not anytime soon, mind you. But… someday. Maybe.”
It makes his heart seize, to hear her offer even a someday, hypothetical, distant maybe. He glares at her. “You’re joking again.”
She shakes her head. “Not about this.”
“We haven’t even—” he cuts himself off, but his eyes sink down to her mouth.
“Well, come on then,” she says, “Have you ever kissed anyone before?”
“I’m not a green boy. I’m a Drüskelle. A warrior. We take a vow.”
“There’s no need to be embarrassed, darling,” she says, kindly.
“I’m not!”
A lie. He knows she sees right through it. She does not call him on it; she merely says, “Alright. Kiss me, then.”
“I will,” he grunts.
“So… do it.”
He hesitates, face and ears burning, despite the fact that he has just fucked her full of his seed, despite all the nights he has spent warming her and being warmed by her, curled up around her beautiful naked body. This simple gesture confounds him.
She’s right. He’s never been kissed nor has he kissed another. He hates that she’s right, that she knows him so well.
Nina’s brows pinch together into a furrow; her mouth goes soft. She stares up at him as he rolls her onto her back again, climbing half atop her, with something akin to pity.
He hates that, too.
“I am not a fool,” he grumbles.
“No,” she says, all seriousness now, all steady earnestness. “You’re not.”
She smooths her hand up the tensed arm bearing his weight, up to his shoulder, then across his back, rubbing, calming, before running up the back of his neck. She is probably using her cursed magic on him and he hates that it feels so good, that his wild heartbeat is easing, that he senses his frayed nerves reknitting themselves. Calm. He feels calmer. She scratches her short nails in intricate patterns across his scalp. He resists the urge to purr like a contented kitten but it’s a close thing, a real struggle; it feels good. Everything about being in this bed with Nina feels so good.
“Press your lips to mine,” she instructs. “Just press. Nice and easy.”
He does as she says, quickly, a stolen peck.
She nods. “Good. Now, imagine a jordbær. It’s a really plump one, ripe as can be, and the second you bite into it, there’ll be juice running all down your chin. You’ve got to catch that lovely, sweet juice while you nibble on the jordbær flesh.”
He frowns down at her, perplexed.
“That’s how I want you to kiss me,” she says.
Needing desperately to prove he can do this, he lowers his mouth to hers, carefully takes hold of her lower lip between his teeth, and begins to nibble.
Her chuckle bubbles up between them. “You don’t—”
His cheeks go hot again. He’s done it wrong. This is too hard; too embarrassing. Never mind, he thinks. Who needs to be kissed, anyway? Not me. He tries to pull away, scalded with shame, but Nina is there, still holding him, tugging him back down to her.
“You’re doing wonderfully,” she says, encouraging. “Just—less teeth.”
Matthias looks at her lush, pink lips and he is struck by a memory.
He is six years old, and he is sitting up in the branches of his family’s vårtbjörk tree, hiding from his baby sister. Down below, she calls out, searching for him in the underbrush at the edge of the forest. A beloved game, one they played all the time in the long, sunny afternoons of the growing season. His mother is weeding in the family garden underneath the tree’s long branches, down on her knees, wearing a dingy old apron over her thin summer dress.
Father tiptoes out of the house and makes his way towards Mother, bare feet silent in the grass; only the singsong call of a distant roëd fetla and the soft leaf-rustling breeze conceal his approach. His eyes meet Matthias’, and he grins, bringing one finger to his lips.
Quiet.
Matthias grins back, copying the gesture. A grand joke. He feels grown-up. He has just turned six and he has begun learning the ways of some grown-up things; his father is teaching him how to cultivate and harvest their crops, how to chop wood, how to hunt. Someday this homestead will be his, and he will find a wife, and they will raise their children here, in the cabin built by his great-great-grandfather. He will take care of his parents in their declining years, keeping them comfortable and happy, and he will see to his sister’s well-being. But for now he is a little boy being included in grown-up things, and he covers his mouth with his hand to suppress his delighted giggle.
When his father reaches his mother, he sinks to his knees behind her, wiggling fingers seeking out her sides. At first she shrieks with surprise, then her shriek melts into golden, sun-spun laughter. Father pulls her up on her knees, turning her head enough so she can look up at him.
They are laughing, happy, so happy. This is a happy memory, a happy moment. It makes Matthias’ chest ache to remember it but he cannot stop the memory from continuing on in his mind's eye.
He recalls how his father tilted his head, still smiling, then brought his mouth down to Mama’s. He can still see Mama smiling against Papa’s lips. She throws her dirt-stained arms around Papa and kisses him back, laughing between kisses, a high, breathy laugh that little Matthias has never heard from her before. There is no shame in the kiss, no recrimination, no hiding it from anyone’s eyes. They love each other, and it is natural for people who love each other to do this. It is good. Even as a boy, Matthias knows this.
They kiss and kiss, embracing each other, a stolen moment, until baby Astrid stumbles out from behind a nearby jordbær bush.
“Matthias, I see you!” she cries, pointing at him. “Come down! You have to find me now!”
His parents glance up at him, laughing. Matthias laughs too.
A happy time, a time that is past. Gone, forever gone. All of them, his sister, his parents, all of it, the garden, the tree, the cabin— gone. He’d forgotten that memory, buried it somewhere it couldn’t hurt him, until this very moment. He blinks with the force of emotion it unearths, longing and misery and something vulnerable and tender which he could not afford to hold onto once he’d joined the Drüskelle but wishes now, with all his might, to reclaim.
Matthias looks down at Nina, her patient smile, her full and eager lips. So clever, so good. Soft, kind, human. Utterly human. He wants to hear her laugh like that, like his mother had. He wants to kiss her until she laughs with him, not at him.
He thinks he hears the distant calling of the roëd fetla, a creature of mild seasons, who is strong enough to survive the long Fjerdan winters and smart enough to enjoy the indulgent pleasure of its sunny summer days, who mates for life and whose cheerful song brings peace to the soul.
You are for me, he thinks. My roëd fetla.
Then he tilts his head and swoops in. He remembers climbing up onto a kitchen chair to steal jordbærs from a bowl set on the table, one for Astrid and one for himself. Remembers the red berry’s sweet juice. Remembers licking his fingers, determined to seek out every last bit of sweetness. He kisses Nina like he cannot waste a single drop of her, like she is the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted.
And she is.
It feels right to do this. He parts his lips to breathe and feels Nina’s sly little tongue swipe across them. That draws a gasp from him and she pounces on the opportunity to venture further, to run her tongue along his. Is it strange? Maybe. But he clutches at her, heart pounding furiously— not knowing or caring if it is her or the kiss doing that— and he tentatively copies her explorations, swelling with pride when she rewards him with a joyful murmur.
This is right, and good, and human. The vulnerability of it wounds him, intimidates him, but that hesitant, wounded nervousness feels more like living than anything else has in years. I love you. The thought presents itself fully formed in his mind and he is shocked, but also, he isn’t. He does, Djel take him. Maybe he always has.
He loves her.
Matthias kisses like he’s trying to convince her of something. Like the kiss is his argument for whatever this is between them, written in licks and nips and soft, guttural grunts. Nina wants to interrupt him, to pull away and reassure him that she’s already decided they’re going to stay together. But that would be rude, wouldn’t it?
He’s doing so well.
Nina would like to keep kissing him. The past six months she has done nothing but work and plan, with the hopes of someday enjoying this. So she does.
In time, she feels his questing hands make tentative caresses along her hips, then her waist, until finally, he brushes careful fingertips over her corseted breasts. That won’t do. She wants him bold, and brash, and maybe just a little bit brutish. She wants him brave. She wants him to know with unerring certainty just how much she wants this, too.
“Help take this off me,” she says, slightly breathless, as she tugs her blouse free from her skirts.
His eyes light up like a child being granted entrance to a sweets shop. Together they make quick work of the skirts, blouse and corset, and when the garments lie in a heap on the hardwood floor, joined by his shabby prison tunic and trousers, Nina runs her hands up his torso, combing her fingers through the dark mat of hair that starts at his cock, narrowing to a line towards his navel before fanning out across his wide, strong chest. The hair is soft, and thick, and warm. This, she remembers from the nights in those whaling tents. But it has changed, too. He is scarred now, scars he did not carry the last time they laid like this. Where he has gained new scars, the hair has not grown back; they remain silvery-white slashes of gnarled, hairless skin, and she presses kisses to her fingertips, then traces them.
He lets her do this, watching, but also, his eyes keep darting towards her full breasts, nipples pebbled and laying towards the sides of her body. In another life, maybe, one where Matthias came to her when she was green and new to sex, maybe this scrutiny would have left her blushing and self-conscious.
In this one, she smirks at him, and thumbs each of his flat nipples in invitation.
“Go on, then, darling,” she says quietly. “Be as mean as you need to.”
Wanton, and debased. Fine. He can no longer bring himself to care.
He might feel self-conscious, might overthink being so exposed to her as she shoves his trousers the rest of the way off with her feet then puts his hands on her skirt ties, prompting him to help her do the same, except that she is exposed too, and all Matthias can see right now, all he can think about, is her beautiful body.
She is Fröja, goddess of war and lust and gold and fertility and sex. She is better than every painting Matthias has ever seen of that voluptuous deity reposing in some garden or boudoir, usually with a goblet of mead in one hand and a spear in the other, lush curves gleaming through her diaphanous robes. Nina is all of that, but she is also the tiny golden freckles sprinkled across her shoulders, and that irrepressible laugh of hers, and her unrelenting bravery and grace, and the hint of syrup he detected on her tongue, and sunshine, and lightness, and things that are good, soft, right. Human.
Matthias feels like he is floating.
He touches her, cupping a breast in his hand. It is a bounty, but it fits perfectly in his palm. He rubs the dusky bud with his thumb, as she did to him, and is gratified when her response is similar to his own.
The pleasure of touching, and being touched, with love. With tenderness. This is what Brum and the other commanders wanted to keep the Drüskelle from knowing. This is what they raised Matthias and the others to spurn, for they feared— rightfully so— that if the soldiers truly understood this, they might stray from the twisted mission of hunting Grisha.
They might find happiness.
Matthias lays his hand on her soft stomach and pins her there, anchoring her, while he dips his head and licks a stripe up the milk-white valley between her breasts. She has been perspiring, yet the taste on his tongue is not unpleasant. Salt. And rosewater. And Nina.
“I think you can do better than that,” she teases.
He sends her a glare. In defiance— or obedience— he turns his head and takes her nipple in his mouth, sucking, hard.
“S-saints.” Her mouth forms a perfect ‘o’, like when he put his hand around her throat, except it’s better, somehow. Then she bares her teeth at him, a vicious smile. “Do that again.”
He does.
Time spent with Nina in this bed is a languid, liquid entity. Even if he were to clench his fists, it would slip through his fingers all the same. Unstoppable, and also, undefinable. Yet never in Matthias’ life has its passage mattered so little to him. Has an hour passed? Has a minute? It hardly registers. There is her body, and there is his mouth.
He has given up war for exploration, and is a richer man in return. He stakes a myriad of claims during his journey. The swell of her belly beneath her navel: mine. The soft, smooth underside of her breasts: mine. The hollow of her throat, the freckles on her sternum, the hard line of clavicle that leads him on a bridge towards the rounded ball of her shoulder: mine, mine, mine.
He is stopped in his tracks when he reaches her forearms; there he finds a design inked into the skin of each that he does not remember seeing the last time they were bared to each other.
On the left, a white rose. And on the right, a crow swooping in to steal a drink from an empty cup.
“This is new,” he says, raising onto his elbows to better study the tattoos.
“My allegiance to the House of the White Rose, my employers. And my gang—the Dregs.”
“Your gang.”
She sighs. “Yes, Matthias. Quite necessary to have one, if a person is to get along in this city.”
He decides to let that go, for the time being. “The House of the White Rose,” he observes, “is a brothel.”
She looks away.
Jealousy flares so fast and so furiously in his chest that he feels hot with it. Suffocated. Sweat prickles at the nape of his neck. “Men have paid for your body?”
“And how would you know it’s a brothel, hm?” she demurs.
Matthias shakes his head. He could tear the linens to shreds and bellow at the moon, he’s so jealous. Jealousy is a sharp, hot knife slipped just beneath his lowest rib, digging deeper with every breath he takes. He wants to fuck the memory of all other men out of her mind.
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Don’t interrogate me,” she snaps. “I’m not your prisoner anymore.”
This is going off the rails; Matthias must try to correct his course. So he does his best to relax his features, because he can feel himself frowning, and explains, “I know it’s a brothel because… because even Drüskelle talk. Have—have you—”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” he asks through clenched teeth.
It is Nina’s turn to frown up at him, though really, ‘glower’ would be a better description of her expression. “Do not get jealous, or sullen, with me. Don’t go all… Fjerdan. Do not press me on this.”
“If you were Fjerdan—” he tries; she interrupts in a hard voice.
“But I'm not Fjerdan, Matthias, just as you are not Ravkan.”
He should stop. A smart man would stop, backtrack, return to her soft, supple body and forget all about the tattoo, about whatever came before.
“Did you give yourself to them, for kruge?”
So he is not a smart man. This should hardly surprise Nina.
“It’s none of your concern!” she growls.
“Did you like it?”
“That’s it. Up. Get off me.”
“It should have been only me,” he says, plaintive, nearly whining, and does not let her up. Instead, he buries his face at her neck, breathing in the scent of her perfume. “I wish it had been only me.”
There is a long, pregnant pause. He thinks maybe he’s angered her further, but then he feels her fingertips on his scalp, softly rubbing and scratching. Soothing, once again soothing him. His shame is a thing beyond measure. Weak.
“Perhaps in another lifetime it might’ve been only you, lapushka,” she says, subdued. “But that’s not the world we live in.”
“And from now on?”
“You worry too much,” she says, attempting to sound carefree but only sounding tired. There are dark shadows under her eyes, he realizes, studying her, and wonders how he could have missed them earlier. She adds, “Just relax. We’re here now, together, aren’t we?”
“We are,” he says gently. “You’re right.”
“Well then. That’s not nothing.”
“No.” He kisses her again, and she melts for him, sighing happily, and he thinks, Maybe I have not ruined this.
“What now?” he asks, when they break apart to catch their breaths.
“Now? Now, I believe you’re going to give me another kiss.”
With a bemused huff, he obeys, ducking down to claim her mouth.
“That was very nice,” she says. “But I wasn't talking about that kind of kiss.”
One hand on the nape of his neck, she pushes him downwards, encouraging the very thing he’s dreamed of: a sinful, lustful act. His mouth on her, there. His whole body grows warm at the very thought of it.
“You mean—?” he starts, then swallows.
“You can,” she says. “I want you to. And I think you want to.”
Leave it alone, he thinks, even as the words tumble out of his mouth: “Did they pay you to let them do this?”
Idiot.
In an instant, her indulgent, impish smile disappears, replaced by a mask of perfect, unflinching stoicism. She gives him nothing, not a hint of what she’s feeling, though her body has gone tense beneath his.
She asks, “Why should I tell you? So you have another reason to think me wretched?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I don’t… I don't think that.”
“You do. You’ve said so.”
“I was wrong,” he says, and he means it. Is this any way to fight her demons, by rubbing her nose in them? Why must he pick at this? What could he possibly hope to gain?
Jealous idiot.
“You think I'm debased,” she says. She attempts to move away from him but he does not release her. “Vile. Selling my soul, for coin.”
Desperation clutches at him. She cannot go.
“Never. I am only a man lost in the dark, Nina, stumbling towards the light,” he blurts out. “You’ll take pity on me, won’t you?”
Another pause. She gives him a long, searching look. With a sigh, she resumes her stroking of his scarred scalp. “I do what I must to get by, darling. So. Do you think less of me?”
“I could never. You are…”
He doesn’t go on. It is his turn to soothe her, so he does: he carefully kneads her breasts, and kisses her in the way he’s learned she likes, and lets one hand stray down to her sex, playing with her, strumming, reveling in the feel of renewed warmth, renewed wetness.
He feels her draw in a ragged breath, hears the hitch in it. The soft slopes of her cheeks shine wetly. Matthias kisses his way up each of them until he has decimated the tears’ path.
These tears, too, he claims: mine.
Her sorrow: mine.
Her pain: mine.
His to fight. He will return to war, after all. He will wage a thousand battles against her troubles, until she knows only joy. He will try to be better, for her.
“What am I?” she asks when at last he pulls away. She looks dazed, and also, like perhaps she’s elected to forgive his stupidity. A lucky idiot, then.
“As I said, Nina.”
She tilts her head at him, brows furrowed.
“Everything,” he says, and begins to kiss his way down to her cunt.
He realizes, just then, how absolutely starved he is. No doubt that’s what the bacon and waffles were meant to sate, but they are where he left them in the kitchen, burned beyond saving, and he does not particularly want either of them to leave this bed at the moment. So this, Nina, this private, sacred part of her, will have to suffice. This will sustain him.
He feasts.
He kisses her cunt just like she taught him, using lips and tongue to alternate between licking broad, flat stripes and obscene, greedy sucking. He leaves no uncharted territory, for if she is to belong to him, he must understand her fully, especially in this way.
She is so warm, so wet. She hands down breathless commands now and then, mutterings of: “Up, higher up,” and “To the left,” and, “Harder, Helvar, it’s not going to break. Harder.” His jaw aches but he is not a man who can content himself with anything less than decisive victory, so at her urging he eases two fingers inside her and carries on, relentless, unwavering, until he feels her flesh quiver against his tongue, dousing his mouth and face in silky, clear wetness.
Then, and only then, does he raise up onto his elbows to meet her eye.
Winded, he asks, “Did—was it—”
“Mmm, perfect. Just perfect,” she murmurs, throwing one leg over his shoulder to stroke his back with her foot, up and down along his spine. He shivers, sated but also full of fresh need, wanting her, and her lips twitch with amusement. “Matthias.”
“Yes?” he asks.
“Would you like to fuck again?”
“I don’t know if I—I can.” They’re long past the point of him attempting to obfuscate with false bravado.
“You can.” She nods eagerly, urging him to sit up with her foot. “I’ll show you, if you like.” Then she rises to her knees and pushes at him, nudging him towards the edge of the bed. Grumbling, he complies. When he’s seated how she wants, with his bare feet flat on the cold wooden floorboards, she crawls around him to get off the bed. Padding across the room, she calls back, “Do you remember how I used to warm you up, back in Ravka? Get your heart beating?”
“Yes,” he answers, and he thinks maybe this is her tactic, for the memories do indeed make his heart race. How terribly he wanted more back then, and how terribly he hated himself for the wanting.
“Did it ever make your cock hard?” she asks, piercing through the memories.
“Nina.”
Maybe they are past scolding, but the back of his neck and the tips of his ears still burn when she speaks like that. He stares at the luxuriant curvature of her backside, feeling like his old prudish self. He knows if he could see himself, his cheeks would be bright red.
“Answer the question.”
She’s doing something with the standing mirror, he realizes: dragging it closer toward the bed, angling it just so. As he watches, she takes a step back and eyes it critically, then spins back towards him with a sunny smile.
The sight of her standing there, completely bared to him, takes his breath away. And yet, even with how much he wants her, he cannot unsee the shadows under her eyes. She needs rest, she needs waffles, she needs to lay with him in this bed for a week.
“No,” he grumps. “I won’t.”
“Well, you don’t have to. I know it did because I could feel it.”
“Then why ask?”
“To torture you,” she says, with a laugh.
He gives a vexed snort.
“Do you want to touch me again?” She draws close, stepping between his spread legs, bracing a hand on each knee and bringing her lips to his cheek. In a whisper, she tells him, “You can.”
He resumes petting her. So soft.
And wet.
“For me,” he says, bringing his shining fingers to his mouth, then sucking them clean. Reminding her of her earlier claim. Hoping she’ll affirm it.
She nods. “All of it.” She throws her arms around his shoulders and scratches lightly at his scalp. By now, it must be obvious he likes that; his eyes slip shut and he sighs.
“Let’s go again,” she says.
“Alright,” he agrees, returning his hand to her sex, cupping, warming himself, warming her. “Show me.”
She brings her hands together, performing an intricate, purposeful twist of her fingers, and at once, he feels warmer, his heart pounding, pulse hammering in his ears. His cock twitches, swells and rises so quickly it verges on painful, but a sweet pain, not like any of the pain he’s felt in the past six months.
“Nina,” he gasps.
“Grisha wiles,” she says, eyes shining.
“Drüsje.”
There’s no heat in the word, now. In fact, it surprises him: even to his own ears, it sounds like a heartfelt endearment. He kisses her, because he has to. Because it’s the only thing in the world he wants to do right now.
Well, one of the only two things he wants to do.
She turns away from him and for a moment he feels panic at the loss of eye contact with her lovely breasts, but then she is backing up towards him, depositing herself in his lap. Without needing to be asked, he pulls her into a bear hug as she throws each leg over his. She makes determined little grunts while she shifts, scooting back and settling herself against him, trapping his erection between her backside and his belly. He throbs against her, wheezing a little at the sensation, and smears precome on them both.
“Hi,” she finally says, letting her head loll back to rest on his shoulder. Her hair is a wild mess, but soft against his bare skin. Their eyes meet. Her lips twitch, a smile tugging at them.
“Roëd fetla,” he says, soft. “My little red bird.”
“Not your trassel? Not your little troublemaker?”
“No.” He shakes his head, then thinks better of it. “Well, maybe a bit. But it is worthwhile trouble. And maybe we will have to go to war, together, my love, but in the end, I think you will bring me more peace than trouble.”
She falls quiet at that, looking serious. Slowly, she brings one finger to his jaw and turns his head towards the wall. The mirror. He understands now what she’s done: she’s positioned it so he can watch her, watch them. With eyes wide as dinner plates, he does just as she intended; he is spellbound, unable to look away, as she puts her feet on the bedframe’s side rail, lifts her hips and aligns that sweet warm wet tight place of hers with his cock, using a hand to guide him inside.
“It’s deeper like this,” she says. “There’s so much I’m going to teach you. Are you looking? Look at us, Matthias.”
There they are. Nina, in all her buxom glory, soft and pliant and leaning against him. Matthias behind her, hairy forearms banded around her a contrast to her belly and breasts. Her thighs spread wide, exposing herself to his hungry gaze, just as he is exposed to hers. Every detail, exposed, from the little kiss she reaches up to place on his cheek, to the way his long toes curl with pleasure at the act. She rolls her hips and he nearly swallows his tongue.
“Will we do this again, after today?” he asks, not taking his eyes off their duplicates in the mirror.
There’s a note of need in his voice: a question asked in the key of supplication. Perhaps he should be ashamed, but she reaches up behind her to grab the back of his head and bring his lips to hers. She kisses him like she fights, like she eats, like she fucks: with zeal, and hunger, and without regret.
So he lets go of shame. He will not miss it.
“Yes, Matthias,” she says, after they break off the kiss. “We’re going to be doing this for a long, long time.”
“I’m still angry with you.” He grabs at her, clutching; a wan simulacrum of violence, but really, mostly— just giving her what she wants. She moans for him, clearly pleased by the gesture, so he adds, in the most censorious tone he can muster, “You put me in prison for six months.”
“I know. I wouldn’t worry—something tells me we’ll work through it.” She lifts her hips until he can see most of his cock beneath her in the mirror, then sinks down again. For a second, he must look away. The sight of it is too much, too carnal. He bites his lip and wills himself not to come, thinking of the ice, of rank whaler's blubber jars, of Brum's harsh punishments for whenever he cried as a boy. When he feels himself settle, he returns his gaze to the mirror.
“And we’ll do it here,” she adds, continuing to ride him, hips rolling hypnotically. “In this bed.”
“Could take a while,” he manages.
“I’m a patient woman.”
“Maybe,” he says, taking each of her breasts in his hands and squeezing, “I will need to be mean again.”
“Have you been mean so far?” she asks, lighthearted, leaning into his grip, urging him on.
He frowns. “I can be mean. I am a fearless warrior.”
“Mmhmm. Matthias?”
“Yes?”
“Less talking now. More fucking.”
“Yes, Nina.”
But later, when their need has been slaked, and Nina has collapsed back against him, panting and sweating, Matthias’ legs shaking with the force of his peak and the burning pleasure-pain of supporting them both, he asks in a soft, fond voice, “Nina. My love. Is there more bacon and waffles?”
She laughs and nuzzles her nose at the stubbly underside of his jaw. “Saints, yes, you oaf. Plenty. Ingredients enough to let us stay holed up in here for a good long while.”
“Good,” he says. “That’s… that’s very good.”
And Matthias Helvar, a soldier forged by his commanders into steel and stone and ice and bone, he smiles at Nina, a gentle, shy smile, something warm, something tender, something private. He smiles at the Grisha abomination who has saved him a dozen times over, whom he could not let die on the ship, whom he cannot imagine living without. He smiles at the human being who has turned his world on its axis, who is everything he ever wanted.
In that smile, he feels saved. He is vulnerable; everything from here on out will be a risk, will hold danger for them both. He feels alive.
He looks at them in the mirror and he smiles for her. A real smile, one he's recovered from someplace long forgotten.
Her reflection smiles back.